An American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer, Melissa Arnette Elliott was born on July 1, 1971.
She started out in the music industry as a member of the R&B girl group Sista in the early to mid-1990s, and then joined the Swing Mob collective alongside her childhood friend and lifelong colleague Timbaland to produce music for American R&B bands Aaliyah, 702, Total, and SWV.
Her solo career began in 1997 with the release of the album Supa Dupa Fly, which had the top 20 hits “Sock It 2 Me.” Prior to that, she had worked with other artists and made cameo appearances.
The album entered the charts at position #3, the highest for any female rapper to that point in the charts’ history.
The singles “She’s a Bitch,” “All n My Grill,” and the top five hits “Hot Boyz” all came from Elliott’s second album, Da Real World, which was released in 1999.
The later song’s remix spent 18 consecutive weeks at the top of the Hot Rap Singles chart from December 1999 through March 2000, and it set a new record for the most weeks at number one on the US R&B chart in the issue of January 15, 2000.
Songs like “Get Ur Freak On,” “One Minute Man,” “4 My People,” “Gossip Folks,” and “Work It” helped launch Elliott’s international fame after the release of his albums Miss E… So Addictive (2001), “Under Construction” (2002), and “This Is Not a Test” (2003).
The latter is what ultimately garnered her a Grammy for Best Female Rap Solo Performance. Iconology is her debut album, which she released this year.
Early Life
Missy Melissa Arnette Elliott entered the world on July 1, 1971, in Portsmouth, Virginia. Patricia Elliott, a dispatcher for a power company, and Ronnie Elliott, a Marine, are her parents. Due to the religious fervor of her family, she began performing in church choirs at a young age.
Her father was a Marine, thus the family relocated to Jacksonville, North Carolina, for a while before returning to Virginia.
Elliott and her mother moved to the Hodges Ferry area of Portsmouth when she was fourteen to escape the violence from her father. Elliott attended and eventually graduated from Woodrow Wilson High in 1990.
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Missy Elliott’s Illness
Immediately following her diagnosis, Missy Elliott had radiation therapy, which helped tremendously.
She also had a loss of hair, extreme swings in mood, confusion, lumps in her throat, eye bulges, and eye pain.
She started exercising regularly and also underwent radiation therapy, both of which helped keep the disease at bay. To quote the patient: “I’ve been off the medicine for almost a year now, and I’m totally treating the sickness by food and exercise, under the advice of my doctor.”
If you are a woman under the age of 40, a smoker, pregnant, experiencing high levels of stress, or have a family history of any of these things, you may be at an increased risk of developing Graves’ illness.
Medication can help reduce the body’s production of thyroid hormones, which in turn can help alleviate symptoms, but there is currently no treatment for hypothyroidism.
If You Have Graves’ Disease, What Side Effects Might You Notice in Your Eyes?
Graves’ disease is characterized by a variety of ocular symptoms, including but not limited to eye irritation or grittiness, red or inflamed conjunctiva the white area of the eyeball, dry eyes, swollen lids, sensitivity to light, forward displacement or bulging of the eyes called proptosis, and double vision.
Graves’ disease has a mysterious origin that has yet to be determined. Typical treatments include radioactive iodine therapy, anti-thyroid drugs, beta-blockers, and/or surgical removal of all or part of the thyroid.
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What Factors Lead to The Development of Fatal Diseases?
Graves’ disease originates in a malfunction of the immune system. This phenomenon’s origin is a mystery. Whenever the body detects a threat, like a virus, bacteria, or parasite, it produces antibodies to neutralize them.
Graves’ disease can manifest itself in a variety of ways, including anxiety, irritability, tremor of the hands or fingers, weight loss, changes in the menstrual cycle, diarrhea, swollen eyes, fatigue, rapid heartbeat, and thick, red skin on the shins or tops of the feet.
Music Career
Elliott assembled the R&B trio Fayze in its entirety female form in 1991. Friends like La’Shawn Shellman, Chonita Coleman, and Radiah Scott were involved.
They had a buddy of Elliott’s from the neighborhood, Timothy Mosley as Timbaland, serve as their producer, and their demo recordings grabbed the ear of another producer, DeVante Swing.
Fayze and Timbaland soon relocated to New York City after signing with Elektra Records via DeVante’s Swing Mob imprint.
Sista was their new name after this. Everyone in Swing Mob, which eventually grew to include over twenty people, shared a two-story house in New York and collaborated on a wide range of creative endeavors.
Elliott also worked with musicians like Raven-Symoné and Jodeci at this time, and the band Sista issued their lone album, “4 All the Sistas Around da World” (1994).
At the close of 1995, Swing Mob broke up, and from that point on, Elliott and Timbaland collaborated as a songwriting and producing duo.
They collaborated on songs recorded by groups like SWV, 702, Aaliyah, Total, and Destiny’s Child. Elliott also pursued a solo singing career, appearing on songs by singers like Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, MC Lyte, New Edition, and Men of Vizion. For her own label, The Goldmind Inc., she partnered with Elektra Entertainment Group’s East West Records in 1996. Midway through 1997, she released her first self-titled album, which went on to earn Platinum certification.
The album did quite well overall, but its first single, “The Rain,” was a huge success. Puff Daddy’s “No Way Out” beat out “Supa Dupa Fly” for Best Rap Album at the 1998 Grammys.
Meanwhile, Elliott kept up her successful work in the background as a producer and composer, contributing to the recordings of Whitney Houston and Melanie Brown of the Spice Girls on Brown’s debut solo single, “I Want You Back”.
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Personal Life
Elliott doesn’t like to discuss her private life with anyone. However, in June 2011, she explained that her extended hiatus from the music industry was caused by health problems.
She was diagnosed with Graves’ illness, a hyperthyroidism disorder when she nearly crashed a car due to leg spasms.